


you want me to leave it there (but i think you know)

by amessofgaywords



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: F/F, i swear to you, just some lovely girls, my take on the thought processes behind dani's early morning coffee stop, the abba title is quite literal, thinking about how much they like other lovely girls, this is the product of sleep deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29262696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amessofgaywords/pseuds/amessofgaywords
Summary: Dani is sure, sure of a thousand things. She’s sure that this is the safest she’s ever felt with another person. She’s sure that she never wants to leave. She’s sure that this is Jamie in her arms and maybe, maybe the way forward.or two anxious idiots stress over first kisses, colorized.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 5
Kudos: 59





	you want me to leave it there (but i think you know)

**Author's Note:**

> oh, hi there! been a bit, hasn't it? i offer you this lovely little piece of randomness to make up for it. i'm currently working on about a thousand fics (including a san junipero au, so keep your eyes peeled) but i was listening to abba, and here we are. enjoy!
> 
> title from take a chance on me... by abba.

Dani kisses Jamie, and it doesn’t fix everything, but it gets pretty close.

Dani never knew kissing someone could be a balm. She never thought about it being much of anything, other than perfunctory, the next step, something you do when you want to seem adult, committed, real. Eddie liked to kiss her, maybe to show they were in love, maybe just because he liked it, and Dani was fine with it. He wasn’t a bad kisser. It was… normal.

Kissing Jamie isn’t normal. Here, bundled up on this couch, Dani feels frayed nerve endings sparking to life under her skin in the places Jamie can’t even reach, like she’s a livewire and Dani is waking up for the first time in a long time. Her whole body feels electric, but mostly her hands, which have settled on Jamie’s waist, her _waist._ Through layers of blanket and coat and jacket and dress, Dani knows there is skin somewhere down there, and she wants to feel it. She wants to see it, and feel it, and know that Jamie knows that there is nowhere Dani would rather be than right here, right now.

Livewire Dani has a deeper level, too, the rolling waves of peace that are settling around the cracked and broken edges of her psyche from just being near Jamie. Someone who takes what’s told to her and runs with it, a someone who listens. Jamie is here, and she’s solid, and she’ll be whatever Dani needs in that moment. So:

“You sure?”

_Yes._

Dani is sure, sure of a thousand things. She’s sure that this is the safest she’s ever felt with another person. She’s sure that she never wants to leave. She’s sure that this is Jamie in her arms and maybe, maybe the way forward. 

Only if she pays for it.

Dani is jumping and Jamie is pulling away. Dani is begging and Jamie is taking the blame. Dani is sitting, frozen, and Jamie is walking off into the cold black night like this is what she deserves.

It isn’t, but Dani doesn’t have the words for that yet. She doesn’t have the language to say _no, it’s me, and I’m going to fix it, because we deserve this, we do._ So she gets up and she follows her: the next best thing.

Jamie drives away, and Dani burns guilt in a fire of bones.

\---

Driving Owen home takes up most of Jamie’s concentration, how drunk he is and the like. She drops him at his house, helps him up to the front door, and takes a moment. The place is cold, dark, still. She takes his hand and leads him to the bedroom too.

Once Owen’s tucked in and slumbering, Jamie makes her way out, drives the half mile to the main street of Bly, parks in a back alley. She drags herself up the back stairs, unlocks her door, opens it, leans against the creaky wood, and now comes Jamie’s least favorite part: the thinking.

Remembering, really.

How Dani’s hair felt. The specific noise she made when Jamie brushed her lips with her tongue, the heat of her pressed close even through four layers. Jamie rubs her lips and comes away with a little bit of Dani’s lip gloss, strawberry flavored maybe. 

Too much thinking. Jamie kicks off her shoes – really kicks, she hates heels, should never have bought them, honestly – and pads on stocking feet to the kitchenette, brushing her fingers against the tips of an African spear plant. She puts the kettle on and digs out a mug and a teabag from an overstuffed cupboard. The room is stuffy, so open goes the fire escape.

Bly is still at night, still enough for Jamie’s racing mind. She takes her tea to bed and strips out of her dress, throwing the first shirt she finds on over her tights. On her nightstand is a check from the Office of Wingrave she has yet to open for the month of March, a dogeared copy of Ender’s Game, and an unopened bottle of water, heavy and a little cold. The latter is what Jamie grabs, pressing it to her forehead and letting the cold wash over her. Intermittent sensory inputs: first the hot tea, then the cold bottle, like whiplash. Like how she had felt walking out of the greenhouse.

Goddamnit, the fuck did she leave for? Also, that is her place of work. She has to go back. Jamie is screwed.

_Romances don’t fare well at Bly, do they?_ Hannah is right. Too many ghosts. Too many… dead ex fiancés lurking around corners, but it would be unfair to blame this all on Dani. Jamie has her demons too. Enough of them, at least.

She likes Dani. Likes her a lot. Likes the way she is with the kids, stern but caring, and likes the way she carries herself. Confident. Unwilling to bend. Jamie could use a bit more of that, rather than approaching every antagonistic situation with an undiluted fiery anger. Could be good, one day, to have Dani around.

And she’s pretty. Disarmingly so, Jamie wasn’t aware Americans could be that attractive. She’s sweet, and funny even when she’s not trying, and she seems to know a lot about the weirdest things. She’s nice to talk to. Dani, by all accounts, is a good person. There’s something to her that makes Jamie think:

_I don’t have to be on guard here._

And she doesn’t. Right up until the moment Dani pulled away with a sharp gasp Jamie felt in her own chest, panic in her eyes. It wasn’t Jamie’s choice. Instinct pressed her in closer, said _ask her if she’s alright, check in, stay here, hold her hand._ Instinct said to care.

Jamie cares for a lot. Two brothers, one destroying himself and one aching to feel grown-up even twenty years later, and she doesn’t talk to either much. Owen and Hannah and the kids she cares for, from afar, knowing they can take care of themselves; still, she’s a pillow when they fall, if she has to be. She cares for plants and they take plenty out of her; much of the love she’s got left to give.

Jamie cares for plenty. She’s got room for Dani, if. If Dani wants it, is all. That’s the key. If Dani wants it.

Jamie’s got an inkling that Dani needs it, sure. But if she wants it. It turns into a different story.

\---

It was a rash decision. Maybe… maybe not one she should have made so soon. In the haze of the kiss fudging the edges of her mind, and the wine blurring the demarcation of reality and lingering ghosts, Dani melted Eddie’s glasses in embers. _What would Judy say?_ Probably, _good riddance._ It was Judy who couldn’t hold on to them anyway.

And anyway, this isn’t about Eddie. Which is the remarkable thing, when Dani thinks about it, because: she pulled back because of Eddie, Jamie walked away because of Eddie, she burns sleepless nights because of Eddie, but it isn’t about him.

Dani’s been looking at women her whole life, more than she should. And a part of her has known since forever, since that very first day Eddie kissed her and she walked away thinking, _okay, I guess if that’s it._ Dani knew when she got butterflies in her stomach around her eighth grade Science teacher, and she knew at the game of Spin the Bottle in sophomore year when Francine Dennis landed on Cassidy Miller, she knew as a seamstress ran gentle hands over her shoulders and gave her low compliments. Dani has _known._ Acting on it is a different story.

It’s so hard, sometimes, to go after what you want. When the road in front of you is paved and straight and the aching, wanting, better-life path curls off through uncharted wilderness. What paradise could possibly be worth it, Dani used to think. Just shut up, straighten your back, love your best friend and remind yourself that it could always be worse than this.

And then- it wasn’t Jamie first. It _is_ Jamie, through and through, now, but it wasn’t her first. There were girls in France and Sweden and Italy, that Dani got drinks with and should have known better, she should have, but here we are. Nothing _happened_ with those girls. But it was enough. The first foray down the wild jungle path. A step, a step, and then a root: Jamie. Tripping Dani up constantly.

There are certain things Dani has learned in her life that Jamie, evidently, has not: keep your mouth shut around people older than you. Scrub up and look presentable so they don’t have anything to insult. Be obedient. Trust that other people know what’s good for you. Take the path of least resistance.

Jamie – for point of example – charged into the jungle on her first day and cut straight through the trees, desperate to see what was on the other side – believing that it had to be better than _this._ A hope that Dani has never really felt, before Jamie.

And she wouldn’t call her an optimistic person, hell no. Jamie isn’t… sunshine and roses and _everything will be okay._ She’s honest. She’s forthright. She’s rough around the edges, but she’s _worth it_ underneath.

People have told Dani that she’s stubborn, and maybe it’s true. Stubborn, to not lose hope in a life she never wanted, stubborn to move on after everything, stubborn to fight for two kids she barely knows and stubborn to burn a pair of glasses in a fire built by hands she wants to feel on her skin again – Dani is learning to let the stubbornness out. Learning, in fact, that it might be what saves her; learning from Jamie that cutting your own path through the dense, overgrown jungle is rewarding, if you hack hard enough at the vines that get in your way.

So time goes on, and Dani mentally arms herself with a chainsaw.

\---

Owen’s mom’s funeral is on a Saturday. He takes time off, and Jamie takes time with him. They will be back on Thursday.

This is both a blessing and a curse; Dani’s not sure, if Jamie walked in the front door of the manor right now, she’d be able to stop herself from jumping her and kissing her senseless, but she also needs time. Jamie needs it too, most likely, but Dani does, really. Time to figure all of this out and relax into things she’s known about herself for ages but always been afraid to confront. Dani wanted safe; she’s only just starting to realize that fighting for safety might be the best way forward.

The house is quiet through the week. Without Owen making noise in the kitchen or his and Jamie’s good-natured banter, the place feels too still, too empty. Hannah disappears for long stretches of time, and Dani doesn’t know where she goes. “Out on walks,” she says when she can remember what she was even doing. Dani would be worried, but Flora has periodic fits of instability and Miles is still mysteriously distant, and. Well, Dani has a job to do, and unfortunely it doesn’t concern looking out for a lovely housekeeper.

Or daydreaming about a certain gardener.

(Dani does both of those things, just to be clear. Leaves food out for Hannah when she misses dinner and always unlocks the back kitchen door in the mornings. Also, daydreams. Quite a bit. She finds herself sleeping, curled around a pillow, consciously or unconsciously flexing her hands like they’re still clutching Jamie’s thick coat.)

If there’s anything the quiet affords, it’s routine. Dani settles into it quickly, and the kids follow suit. Up by seven, breakfast at seven thirty. A walk around the grounds for good exercise, then inside for lessons before lunch. Some play time before dinner, and straight to bed at eight, no arguments.

This schedule gives Dani free time, maybe more of it than she wants, to think. She wanders out to the statue gardens, but not often – that crying angel freaks her out. Sometimes, she sits in the kitchen with a cup of tea (which still tastes _fine_ ) and reads for a bit, or straightens up her room, a somewhat constant process. When night falls, Dani plugs in her Walkman and relaxes.

Which is easier said than done. She cycles through tapes she’s had for ages, some of them close to falling apart, all a memory or another. Culture Club, Wham!, Cyndi Lauper, Prince. ABBA, an old tape of her dad’s that she keeps around, is the one she ends up listening too most frequently. The songs remind her of Jamie. She wonders if Jamie likes ABBA, what kind of music Jamie likes, if she has a record collection – the sheer amount of band tees she owns suggests that probably, yes. She wants to know all about Jamie she can, and then she wants to watch while Jamie learns things about herself. Dani just wants to… _be there._

Dani listens to Take a Chance on Me as she’s falling asleep, and thinks, _yes, just maybe, I will._

\---

Jamie goes back to work on Thursday. Gives her a whole… four days to think. Ponder. Obsess, perhaps.

The way Jamie sees it, the facts are thus:

1\. Dani is recovering from trauma, wracked with guilt, in a fragile state: pick any.

2\. Dani likes Jamie – and she’s not being egotistical here, it’s been clear from day one that woman can’t keep her eyes off of Jamie’s overalls. Not that she’s complaining, per se.

3\. Dani is determined, incredibly determined, to push through this trauma, by pursuing Jamie in a rather dogged fashion.

4\. This includes kissing her silly in a dark greenhouse.

5\. Jamie wants to kiss Dani Clayton again. Soon as possible, really.

So, yes. These facts should line up rather well. Except for the part, of course, where Jamie is dead set against taking of advantage of Dani in any way. Not even if she wants her to. Not even if she’s begging for it, Jamie will give her space. Room, to recover, think, whatever else she might need to do.

Jamie likes her. More than she expected to, more than she’s liked anybody else in a long time. But Jamie has a routine, and a life, and roots that have grown down, and she hesitates to reach them out. Reaching out, entangling her roots with other people, it never ends well.

She drags Dani down with her. Jamie isn’t blind, Bly is a haunted place. Far more haunted than any old house has any rights to be, and it’s her home, but it doesn’t need to be Dani’s. Not forever. Jamie won’t keep her here, where floorboards creak and the dead are never far.

Either that, or: Dani leaves. Splits, like the others. Or does something she doesn’t mean to, since – and Jamie truly believes this – Dani is the type to stick around, leave a note if she’s going someplace, come back no matter what. Dani, she has an inkling, doesn’t leave without saying goodbye. Still.

Dani could do something. Get hurt. Get Jamie hurt. Dani could regret, not be happy; Jamie’s been in that place. You need something, so bad you might burn from it, but you don’t want it. You get it, and it isn’t right, and you have to go onto the next thing and leave a mess behind in your wake.

Given what Dani’s told her about her life, her family, her town in the American Midwest (why is there a Midwest? Why not just… west?), Jamie thinks, _knows,_ Dani needs this. Her. But, does Dani want it?

So that’s what Jamie needs to know. Needs to figure out, and then, well, they can go from there. Jamie’s never had a problem taking her time, that’s true.

Jamie wears clean jeans and a belt, even, to work on Thursday. Just in case. Cleans out the front seat of her truck. Just in case. Holds her breath and hears her heart thump unevenly as she morning-waters the plants. Just in case.

\---

Three hard knocks on the metal of the doorframe. Jamie turns and raises an eyebrow, to disguise her breath catching in her throat.

“Don’t usually see you this early in the AM.”

Dani’s mouth opens, her eyes wide, blue, bashful. “Yeah, well I… I know that you start early on Thursdays… sooo, I thought I’d bring you some coffee.”

Jamie bites her lip. The mug of coffee, watery and brown but an _effort,_ is proof enough.

Dani and Jamie, two awkward souls, both of them teeming with _want._ Nowhere to go with it, really, except forward.

**Author's Note:**

> if you caught the taylor swift reference, i'm applauding you from afar (not that it was really... subtle, on my part).
> 
> come yell at me @amessofgaywords on twitter.


End file.
